The Amazon of China is putting its high-end beef imports on the blockchain

A JD.com delivery driver passes by a local butcher in Wuhan, Hubei province.
JD

The Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is looking to blockchain to prove the authenticity of its steaks to wary consumers.

Starting in spring, JD customers can track where "each piece" of meat has been, how it was transported, and how the specific animal it came from was raised.

With 292.5 million active users, JD may finally take blockchains mainstream — at least when it comes to food tracking.

The Chinese e-commerce company JD.com is turning to blockchain technology to keep customers in the loop about where their meat has been.

JD, Wal-Mart's partner in China and a huge competitor to Alibaba, said customers will be able to track "each piece" of beef "right back to the farm in Australia where it was produced."

The tracking system is unique to JD's partnership with the Australian beef producer HW Greenham & Sons Pty Ltd.

When it goes live in spring, customers will have access to information including where and how the specific animal was raised, how the meat was processed, and how it was transported.

It's a big gain for blockchain advocates, who have slowly seen the technology enter public uses beyond bitcoin. Blockchains are the technology behind cryptocurrencies, but they are essentially just an extremely secure and un-editable digital ledger system.

JD is an economic powerhouse and a huge influencer in the Chinese market. The company reported $55.7 billion in annual revenue in 2017, and a total of 292.5 million active users.

JD wants blockchain to prove the authenticity of its steaks

Though JD's beef project has an unusual level of consumer transparency, food tracking is one of the key use cases for blockchains.

JD.com CEO Richard Liu (left) and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon are both experimenting with blockchains.
JD
Grocery chains are particularly interested in the technology for tracking food borne illnesses. It's not always easy to figure out the source of an outbreak of salmonella, for example, and a lot of food can go to waste in the food recall process.

Blockchains function as a comprehensive, universally visible receipt. In the food supply chain, it can be used to track everywhere a specific product or produce shipment has been, and at what point in the supply chain it was contaminated.

But blockchain can also serve as proof of authenticity in markets like China, where counterfeit goods slip under the radar. Just as art dealers and Kodak are looking to blockchain to prove the authenticity and ownership of fine art and photographs, JD wants to use it to prove that its steaks really are from Australia.

Chen Zhang, chief technology officer at JD, said that the company is increasingly using blockchain to track products in order to assure consumers that they are purchasing "safe, reliable products for their families."

"Consumers in China don't just want quality imported products, they want to know that they can trust how and where their food is sourced, and blockchain helps us deliver this peace of mind," Zhang said in a statement.

JD is part of the Chinese Blockchain Food Safety Alliance formed in December, which also includes Walmart, IBM, and Tsinghua University.